Adam Daniel Rotfeld

Rotfeld was born in Przemyślany[1] near Lwów, Poland (now Lviv, Ukraine). He survived the Holocaust in the Univ Lavra, a monastery of the Studite Brethren. During the war he was among people who received the Paraguayan citizenship certificate issued by Ładoś Group.[2]

Rotfeld was married to Barbara Sikorska-Rotfeld (died in 2006) and has one daughter, Alicja, born in 1971.

Rotfeld studied international law and diplomacy in Warsaw (1955–1960). He wrote his PhD dissertation on the right of self-determination of people in modern international law at the Jagiellonian University, Kraków which he defended in 1969. Later, habilitation on European Security in Statu Nascendi. He was appointed professor at Warsaw University by the President of Poland in 2001.

From 1961, Rotfeld worked as a researcher at the Polish Institute of International Affairs (PISM, the acronym formed from the Polish name). He was a member of the UN Secretary General Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters from 2006 to 2011, and its chair in 2008; member of the NATO Expert Group on the New Strategic Concept of Alliance (2009-2010), and since 2010 Commissioner of the Euro-Atlantic Security Commission, member of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR).

After 1989, he has served as leader of the Project on Building a Co–operative Security System in and for Europe at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). He was appointed as Director of SIPRI from 1 July 1991 and re–elected in 1996 for a second term, lasting until June 2002. He is a member of many consultative bodies and scientific councils, including the Institute of Political Studies at the Polish Academy of Sciences. He is co-chairman of Polish-Russian Group on Difficult Matters.

He has participated in many multilateral negotiations and conferences on security and arms control.

Rotfeld has published and edited more than 20 monographs and over 400 articles. His work initially focused on the legal and political aspect of relations between Germany and Central and East European states after World War II (recognition of borders, the Munich Agreement and the right of self-determination) and multilateral process of security and cooperation in Europe initiated by the Helsinki Accords, as well as arms control and non-proliferation.

After the end of the cold war he co-edited the volume Germany and Europe in Transition (OUP 1991) with Walther Stützle. Since then his publications have mainly focused on human rights, cooperative security, CSBMs, multilateral security structures (NATO, EU, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE)) and the political and legal structures of the security system in Europe.

He was editor of the SIPRI Yearbook: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security from 1991 to 2002. He has written more than 20 chapters on global and regional security systems and European and transatlantic security structures for the SIPRI Yearbook. He initiated the Warsaw Reflection Group (2004) and chaired the series of reports on the UN reform, multilateral European security institutions and on arms control, non-proliferation and denuclearization.[3]

In his capacity as Director of SIPRI, he was appointed in 1992 as Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office to elaborate the political settlement of the conflict in the Trans–Dniester region of Moldova; the recommended basic principles for the political solution of the conflict in his report were approved by the OSCE Council of Ministers and conflicting parties.

Since 2001 he has been a member of the President of Poland's National Security Council.

He became Undersecretary of State at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA, Warsaw) in November 2001; in June 2003 he was appointed Secretary of State and served as Minister of Foreign Affairs between January 2005 and November 2005.

Since 2006 he has been a member of the UN Secretary-General's Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters (chaired 2008).

Since 2008, former Foreign Minister Rotfeld has been Co-Chairing the Polish-Russian Group For Difficult Issues, in particular the Katyn massacre, together with Rector of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (University), Anatoly V. Torkunov.

He is a member of different academies and boards: the Royal Swedish Academy of War Sciences (appointed in 1996); the Governing Board of the Hamburg Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg (IFSH, appointed in 1995); the Advisory Board of Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF, appointed in 2001); Geneva Security Policy Centre (2003), and many other research centres. He has been a member of the European Council on Foreign Relations since 2009.

Since March 2011 he has been professor at the Warsaw University Institute of Interdisciplinary Research (Collegium Artes Liberales). He has lectured at many universities and academic institutions in Europe, the United States, Russia, China and Japan.

As former Polish minister for integration, in 2012 signed the Soros' open letter calling for more Europe in the single currency turmoil.[4]

He serves as a member of the OSCE's Panel of Eminent Persons.[5]

Grand Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta – 2010[6]

The Commander's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta – 2005[7]

Bene Merito Honorary Badge – 2009[8]

Polish-Ukrainian Reconciliation Award – 2007[9][10]  

Honorary Doctorate in National Defense, University of Warsaw – 2013[11]

• Prof. dr hab. Adam Daniel Rotfeld at Nauka Polska
• Nota biograficzna na stronie Ministerstwa Spraw Zagranicznych (in German)
• Adam Daniel Rotfeld, Wspomnienia. Tyle pamiętam w: "Polityka" Nr 7 (2491)/2005
• Polish-Russian Group For Difficult Issues, in particular Katyn massacre, co-Chaired by Rector of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (University) – Anatoly V. Torkunov and former Poland's Foreign Minister Adam Daniel Rotfeld – 12 April 2011 and 23 February 2011 and 29 January 2009 and 17 June 2008